Sunday December 12, 2004

Pre-Intermediate +

THE ARTICLE

The World Buddhist Summit ended yesterday in Rangoon, Myanmar. Its closing mantra was for Buddhists worldwide to spread Buddha’s message of love, unity, friendship and understanding around the world to secure peace and prosperity. This is a welcome break from news of terrorism. Buddhist leaders, monks and nuns from over thirty countries attended the 3-day gathering. Two additional messages for the world’s Buddhists were to protect and restore their 2,500-year-old religion’s sacred and historic Buddhist sites, and spread the word of meditation as a weapon of peace.

The topics discussed included the universal appeal of Buddha, world peace, and meditation. The conclusion was that love, understanding and kindness can end war and poverty. Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said such virtues exist in all people and all religions. Buddha’a message of harmony and goodwill, however, seems to be lacking in Myanmar’s military government, which is infamous for human rights abuses, especially against Buddhist leaders; and for the detention of Nobel Peace prize winner and democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi.

POSSIBLE WARM UPS / COOL DOWNS

1. CHAT:  Talk in pairs or groups about Buddha / Buddhism / meditation / love and peace / war and poverty / Myanmar / Aung San Suu Kyi / …
To make things more fun, try telling your students they only have one minute (or 2) on each chat topic before changing topics / partners. Change topic / partner frequently to energize the class.

2. SUMMIT DELEGATES: Students are delegates at the Summit. They talk about the messages of love, peace, friendship, harmony and meditation can end the world’s problems.

3. BUDDHISM BRAINSTORM: Ask students for facts / feelings / opinions on the 2500-yaer old religion of Buddhism. Students talk about these in pairs.

4. 2-MINUTE DEBATES: Students face each other in pairs and engage in the following (for-fun) 2-minute debates. Students A are assigned the first argument, students B the second. Rotate pairs to ensure a lively pace and noise level is kept:
Myanmar was a bad choice to hold the Summit. vs. Myanmar was the perfect choice.
Meditation can solve the world’s problems. vs You live with your head in the clouds.
There should be more nice news like this in the papers. vs Get real
Meditation should be taught in elementary schools. vs. You mean we should all be Buddhist?.
The world would be safer if it were Buddhist. vs. Buddhist countries have human rights records too.

PRE-READING IDEAS

1. WORD SEARCH: Students look in their dictionaries / computer to find collocates, other meanings, information, synonyms … of the word ‘love’.

2. DEFINITIONS: Choose the correct definition from each pair:

a.	summit (n)	(a) a meeting of high level leaders (b) the top of a mountain
b.	mantra (n)	(a) an insect that looks like it’s praying (b) message
c.	unity (n)	(a) counting things (b) the state or condition of ‘oneness’ of harmony, being all together
d.	prosperity (n)	(a) having money / being rich (b) a disease that makes people greedy
e.	sacred (adj)	(a) a cloth bag (b) holy, very very important thing in a religion
f.	meditation (v)	(a) to focus your mind on 100% peace and calmness (b) a kind of negotiation
g.	poverty (n)	(a) being very very very poor (b) being very very very rich
h.	virtues (n)	(a) examples of our goodness / excellent qualities in humans (b) a video game effect that makes the screen look real
i.	infamous (adj)	(a) being famous right now (b) being famous for doing something bad
j.	abuses (n)	(a) things that hurt and injure other people (b) short prayers

3. TRUE / FALSE: Students predict whether they believe the following statements are true or false:
(a)  The World Buddhist Summit was held in Rangoon, Myanmar.  T / F
(b)  Its meaasage was for Buddhists worldwide to spread Buddha’s message of love, unity, friendship and understanding. T / F
(c)  Buddhist leaders, monks and nuns from over one hundred countries attended the 3-day gathering.  T / F
(d)  Another message was to spread the word of meditation as a weapon of peace.  T / F
(e)  Love, understanding and kindness can end war.  T / F
(f)  Harmony and goodwill are an important part of Myanmar’s military government.  T / F
(g)  Myanmar has a clean record on human rights.  T / F
(h)  Nobel Peace prize winner and democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi is a free woman in Myanmar.  T / F

4. SYNONYM MATCH: Students match the following synonyms from the article:

(a)	summit	message
(b)	closing	togetherness
(c)	mantra	conference
(d)	unity	holy
(e)	welcome break	campaigner
(f)	gathering	relief
(g)	sacred	ending
(h)	universal	missing
(i)	lacking	meeting
(j)	infamous	worldwide
(k)	abuses	crimes
(l)	advocate	renowned

  

WHILE READING ACTIVITIES

1. GAP-FILL:  Put the missing words under each paragraph into the gaps.

Love Love Love

The World Buddhist Summit __________ yesterday in Rangoon, Myanmar. Its closing mantra was for Buddhists worldwide to spread Buddha’s __________ of love, unity, friendship and understanding around the world to __________ peace and prosperity. This is a welcome break from news of terrorism. Buddhist leaders, monks and nuns from over thirty countries attended the 3-day gathering. Two additional messages for the world’s Buddhists were to __________ and restore their 2,500-year-old religion’s sacred and historic Buddhist sites, and spread the __________ of meditation as a weapon of peace.		ended word message protect secure
The topics __________ included the universal appeal of Buddha, world peace, and meditation. The __________ was that love, understanding and kindness can end war and poverty. Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said such __________ exist in all people and all religions. Buddha’a message of harmony and goodwill, however, seems to be __________ in Myanmar’s military government, which is infamous for human rights abuses, especially against Buddhist leaders; and for the detention of Nobel Peace prize winner and __________ advocate Aung San Suu Kyi.		conclusion discussed lacking democracy virtues

 

2. DEFINITIONS:  Students check their answers to the definition exercise.

3. TRUE/FALSE:  Students check their answers to the T/F exercise.

4. SYNONYM MATCH: Students check their answers to the word match exercise.

5. QUESTIONS: Students make notes for questions they would like to ask the class about the article.

6. VOCABULARY:  Students circle any words they do not understand. In groups pool unknown words and use dictionaries to find the meanings.

7. ‘YES YES YES / NO NO NO’:  Students underline anything they thought should definitely happen in the world, and circle anything they believe should not happen.

POST READING IDEAS

1. GAP-FILL: Check the answers to the gap-fill exercise.

2. QUESTIONS:  Students ask the discussion questions they thought of above to their partner / group / class. Pool the questions for all students to share.

3. VOCABULARY: As a class, go over the vocabulary students circled above.

4. STUDENT-GENERATED SURVEY: Pairs/Groups write down 3 questions based on the article. Conduct their surveys alone. Report back to partners to compare answers. Report to other groups / the whole class.

5. ‘YES YES YES / NO NO NO’:  Students talk about the things they underlined and circled as interesting.

6. ‘LOVE’: Students make questions based on their findings from pre-reading activity #1.

7. DISCUSSION:  Students ask each other the following questions:
(a)  What do you think of Buddhism?
(b)  What do you feel when you see Buddha’s image?
(c)  Have you ever thought about becoming a Buddhist?
(d)  What do you think of meditation?
(e)  What do you think of the messages from the Summit?
(f)  How can there be such a thing as a weapon of peace. Isn’t that an oxymoron?
(g)  How does the world stop war and end poverty?
(h)  Don’t you think it was wrong to hold the Summit in Myanmar, with its infamous record on Human Rights?
(i)  Do you think Myanmar should be called ‘Myanmar’ or ‘Burma’?
(j)  What do you think about Aung San Suu Kyi?
(k)  Don’t you think there should be more nice news like this in the papers / on TV?
(l)  What other questions do you have relating to this article?

HOMEWORK

1. VOCAB EXTENSION: Choose several of the words from the text. Use a dictionary or the Google search field to build up more associations / collocations of each word.

2. INTERNET: Search the Internet and find more information on Homo floresiensis. Share your findings with your class next lesson.

3. BUDDHISM POSTER: Create an information poster outlining the religion of Buddhism.

4. LETTER TO GEORGE: Write a letter to US President George W. Bush (or your own government’s leader) urging him to take stronger action against the Myanmar military government for the immediate release of Aung San Suu Kyi.

ANSWERS

DEFINITIONS:

a.	summit (n)	(a) a meeting of high level leaders (b) the top of a mountain OK – both correct definitions, (a) applies here though.
b.	mantra (n)	(b) message
c.	unity (n)	(b) the state or condition of ‘oneness’ of harmony, being all together
d.	prosperity (n)	(a) having money / being rich
e.	sacred (adj)	(b) holy, very very important thing in a religion
f.	meditation (v)	(a) to focus your mind on 100% peace and calmness
g.	poverty (n)	(a) being very very very poor
h.	virtues (n)	(a) examples of our goodness / excellent qualities in humans
i.	infamous (adj)	(b) being famous for doing something bad
j.	abuses (n)	(a) things that hurt and injure other people

TRUE / FALSE:
(a)  The World Buddhist Summit was held in Rangoon, Myanmar.  T
(b)  Its message was for Buddhists worldwide to spread Buddha’s message of love, unity, friendship and understanding. T
(c)  Buddhist leaders, monks and nuns from over one hundred countries attended the 3-day gathering.  F
(d)  Another message was to spread the word of meditation as a weapon of peace.  T
(e)  Love, understanding and kindness can end war.  T
(f)  Harmony and goodwill are an important part of Myanmar’s military government.  F
(g)  Myanmar has a clean record on human rights.  F
(h)  Nobel Peace prize winner and democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi is a free woman in Myanmar.  F

SYNONYM MATCH:

(a)	summit	conference
(b)	closing	ending
(c)	mantra	message
(d)	unity	togetherness
(e)	welcome break	relief
(f)	gathering	meeting
(g)	sacred	holy
(h)	universal	worldwide
(i)	lacking	missing
(j)	infamous	renowned
(k)	abuses	crimes
(l)	advocate	campaigner